Quote:As it turns out, getting chills from music is not as common as you might think. Researchers from USC released a study that suggests that only about 50 percent of people feel things like shivers, a lump in their throat, and goosebumps when they listen to music. What's more, those people might have very different brains than those who don't experience those feelings.

First, they gathered 20 people and had them listen to a selection of their favorite songs. Whenever they felt a chill, they pressed a button. All 20 were then given MRI scans — and the 10 that reported reactions were obvious standouts. Their brains turned out to have a much higher volume of fibers connecting their auditory cortex to the areas that process emotion.

More fibers mean that those two areas of the brain can communicate much more effectively. It also means that, because their emotional processing centers are beefier, those people are more able to experience extreme emotions.

Interesting stuff. Without being too nerdy, the figures in the article aren't quite right. The 20 were selected from a larger survey of 237 as the 10 most and least responsive to music, so the 50% shiver rate in the group of 20 is by design.

I have noticed that people who don't appear to get much out of music seem a bit emotionally blunted. And boring. Poor things. It's also interesting that musical training didn't matter a great deal. As it says at the end of the study, music seems to bypass analytical and culture-specific parts of the brain and appeals directly to social and emotional centres.

Amongst many others, The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds has the hairs standing up on the back of my neck every single time. I think I'd be quite sad if that ever stopped happening, or I wasn't moved by music generally.